Free Twilight Magic by Shari Anton Page B

pallets. He should have, too, but the ale had gone down smoothly while answering Maura and Gar’s questions. And parts of him were too restless to allow slumber.
    To quiet those parts he needed a female. Problem was, the only female his parts yearned for was Emma. Not good.
    “I do not understand,” Maura said. “Why would a lady damage her reputation for . . . someone she does not know?”
    For the likes of you,
he heard.
    Darian didn’t understand, either. He wasn’t satisfied that she’d meddled to save an innocent man from hanging. Noblewomen did not concern themselves with a commoner’s affairs.
    “She told me she believed I did not commit the murder and could not stand by and see an innocent man hang.”
    Gar scoffed. “Lady Emma saved your neck and now you will repay her with an annulment? How generous of you.”
    His ire pricked, Darian leaned forward. “Better an annulment than being forced together for life. Lady Emma wants this marriage no more than I do. I should think freeing her of me the better repayment.”
    Maura glanced over at the pallet on the floor near the hearth he’d requested for himself. “So you two have not, uhm, consummated the union?”
    “Nor will we. Leaving her virginity intact may be the best way to ensure an annulment.”
    Gar pinned him with a censorious stare. “How do you know for certain she is a virgin?”
    Darian inwardly shuddered. He’d assumed Emma a virgin. Lord knew she kissed like one, all sweetness and innocence. Oh, she’d set him aflame, too easily, but experience told him she had little if any familiarity with kissing, much less coupling.
    Still, she’d confessed to taking him to her pallet in the queen’s solar, so could easily have done so with another man. He might believe Emma innocent of fornication, but he certainly shouldn’t count on it.
    “If she is not a virgin, then we shall have to find another way to end this travesty of a marriage,” he finally answered Gar. “The marriage was forced. Neither of us wants it.”
    Which brought him back to why he and she were in this muddle to begin with. Emma might believe him innocent of de Salis’s murder, but to further blacken the de Leon name to save him still seemed extreme.
    He couldn’t think of any other motive, however. If she’d truly come forward out of conviction and compassion, well, that had to be the nicest thing anyone had done for him in years.
    But no matter the reason for her act of mercy, he refused to be beholden to her. Or even like her overmuch.
    Best he not like anyone overmuch. Losing someone he cared for hurt like the devil, and he wasn’t about to suffer that agony ever again.

Chapter Seven
    W ith an earthenware mug in hand, Emma eased down the stairs, amazed at how well she felt this morn. The headache had already dulled to a nagging ache at the back of her skull. Usually, the headaches required two days or more to ease, and Emma rejoiced at this one’s lack of tenacity.
    Nearly all of Hadone’s residents had already broken their fast. Only one of the trestle tables remained in the middle of the hall, where Darian sat with Maura. They appeared to be conversing companionably, a feat she and Darian hadn’t yet accomplished.
    Not surprising, she supposed, because they were doomed to be at odds until their circumstances changed. Emma didn’t know which problem Darian was more anxious to have settled—their annulment or de Salis’s murder.
    One of the huge, shaggy wolfhounds she’d noticed yester eve rested its head on Darian’s thigh. With a contented smile, he scratched the hound behind the ears. The hound sat statue still, eyes closed, most satisfied with the quality stroke of Darian’s fingers.
    Jealousy niggled at her even as she acknowledged the senselessness of envying how easily he talked to Maura or the attention he gave the hound.
    She’d fallen asleep last night with the sensation of floating in Darian’s arms, with the taste of him lingering on her lips.